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Thursday, May 21, 2009

This past Sunday was the annual Poetry Festival: A Celebration of Literary Journals, an event that I developed six years ago and have run each year since. The festival is always exciting and fun, a day filled with poetry lovers, poets, poems, journals, conversation. This year was extra special for me. Read on and find out why.

This is Mayor Joseph Tempesta, of West Caldwell, NJ, where the festival is held and where I live. He arrived at the beginning of the third reading session and approached the podium. Here he is getting out his glasses so he could read a proclamation appointing me, yes Me!, the Poet Laureate of West Caldwell. (See Anthony Buccino in the first row snapping a photo? He provided photos of the entire day.)

Here we are posing with the proclamation in hand as the Mayor passes it to me.

And a closer shot

Then a beautiful cake helped to celebrate the event. The cake was provided by the Friends of the Library.

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About Me

I live and write poetry in New Jersey. My most recent book is The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop. I am also the author of three full-length books, most recently Temptation by Water (Wind Pub, 2010). My second collection, What Feeds Us, received the 2006 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize. I am also the author of Eve's Red Dress and two chapbooks, Against Perfection and Greatest Hits 1997-2010. My poems appear in a number of anthologies such as Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times and in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. My poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac.

What Feeds Us

Eve's Red Dress

Readings

Saturday, March 28, 2015, Girl Talk: A Poetry Reading in Celebration of Women's History Month, with more than two dozen women poets, West Caldwell Public Library, 30 Clinton Rd., West Caldwell, NJ, 1:00 - 4:00 PM